What bokononists whisper whenever they think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.


By Elton Beard

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who divide people into two kinds and those who don't. I don't.


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ARCHIVE ARCHIVE ARCHIVE

Saturday, January 22, 2005
7:00 PM PT

Shorter David Brooks:
Ideals and Reality
  • Mr. Bush's words are more real than his policies.

See Also: Belle Waring at Crooked Timber gives Brooks a good fishing. (via)

Plus: Social Security is like... On last night's PBS NewsHour, Brooks discussed Bush's plans for the country:

And on domestic policy, either he succeeds in passing Social Security and tax reform, which means he will have remade the welfare state and he will be FDR II, or else he fails and doesn't get that stuff passed.
Likewise progressive taxation, presumably. The man is a veritable meme machine.

Friday, January 21, 2005
11:55 PM PT

Shorter William Safire:
Bush's 'Freedom Speech'
  • Only tyrants start wars, enslave people and provoke revolution, so Mr. Bush intends to start wars against those he identifies as tyrants, to occupy their countries and overthrow their governments.

See Also: Yamantaka at The Expat has another take.

Credit for the seminal Shorter is forever due to Daniel Davies, now of Crooked Timber.

3:30 PM PT

Shorter Benjamin Zycher:
Call 'Negotiated' Drug Prices What They Really Are: Price Controls
  • When a seller demands a price and the buyer can take it or leave it, that's capitalism, but when the buyer offers a price and the seller can take it or leave it, that's socialism.

Not Surprisingly: Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow in economics at the Pacific Research Institute, which receives some grant funding from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Assn.

Thursday, January 20, 2005
9:00 PM PT

Shorter Thomas L. Friedman:
An American in Paris
  • And the next country to greet American liberators with flowers and dancing in the streets will be Iran.

See Also: Atrios does it metaphorically.

6:30 PM PT

Shorter Max Boot:
Necessary Roughness
  • Americans do not torture prisoners, and when we do it's often without high level-approval, and it's mostly only mild torture anyway, and besides, without a little torture how can we get them to confess that they're all terrorists?

Plus, A Logic Check: Torture vs. Rough Methods. Max Boot and his ilk seem to indicate a disapproval of torture but rather enthusiastically endorse the application of "necessary roughness" to suspected terrorists in American custody.

It seems highly likely, however, that the degree of roughness necessary to extract information from a hardened terrorist would probably amount to torture if applied to, say, Mr. Boot. So it's a distinction without a difference. Physical pain intense enough to induce meaningful cooperation is, by any other name, still torture.

4:00 PM PT

Shorter Lanny Davis:
True Confessions: A Democrat Likes George
  • George W. Bush is a good decent man, a kind sincere compassionate man, a paragon of integrity humility virtue and vision, while I, I am a Democrat.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005
11:00 PM PT

Shorter David Brooks:
The Gingrich Democrats
  • Democrats should not fight for their principles because their principles are just not worth fighting for.

Exhibit A: Joe Biden. The Senator from Delaware took a post-hearing interview on CNN's Paula Zahn Now. It went like this:

ZAHN: And joining me now is the most powerful Democratic Senator, Joseph Biden of Delaware. So Senator, do you think Condoleezza Rice was truthful in her testimony before the Senate today?

BIDEN: I think she was evasive in her responses to Senator Boxer's questions about what I think was disinformation. She was literally correct when she said that the intelligence community, a portion of it, said those aluminum tubes were for a gas centrifuge system but, like others in the administration, she didn't point out that a significant portion of the intelligence community said no no, they're not for that purpose. But it was, to use the fancy word, it was disingenuous.

ZAHN: So Senator, you've found her disingenuous. Barbara Boxer your colleague basically said Dr. Rice's defense of the war "overwhelmed her perspective of truth". Isn't that going to be a problem for her?

BIDEN: Look. My standard is, if the person is, in my view, if the person is the President's choice, someone who has the competence intellectually and practically to do the job, then I err on the side of giving the president choice, so I will vote for her. But I wasn't particularly impressed by her performance today before the committee.

[...]

ZAHN: Senator, as we leave you tonight, I need some help with math here. You asked Dr. Rice a very pointed question about the number of Iraqi security forces that are really trained to do the job. She contended it was 120,000, you say based on your several visits to Iraq it's closer to 4,000. What are we talking about here?

BIDEN: In the field, if you ask any commanding officer over there, how many Iraqi military are ready to supplant an American force on the ground, you will get a number a heck of a lot closer to 4,000 than you will 120,000, and it's because we've had a really, really lousy training problem up until about three months ago when General Petraeus took over, and further because we have not taken advantage of the offers of the Egyptians, of the French even, and the Germans and others, to train Iraqi forces.

ZAHN: But Senator, we're talking about a 116,000 discrepancy here!

BIDEN: Absolutely positively.

ZAHN: So how can you support Dr. Rice if, in fact, her numbers are vastly different from yours? You don't believe her numbers!

BIDEN: Well, I believe her number in this regard. There are 120,000 people in uniform. Are they trained? No! Are they equipped? No! We are not winning in Iraq. The place is more dangerous. Unless there's a serious course change, we're in real trouble.

ZAHN: So how can you support her if she doesn't have a clear assessment of that?

BIDEN: Because that's the President of the United State's policy. You know, she's not the one that makes the policy. The President of the United States is saying the same things that she's saying. And the fact of the matter is I've never seen such concentration of power, within the White House and the Vice President's office, as I'm seeing now. Are they entitled to do that? Yeah! Is it a smart thing to do? No! Does it shut out other voices? Yeah! I think we're going in the wrong direction, I'm concerned about it, but, once she's Secretary of State, maybe there'll be a bit of an epiphany here. But I'm not counting on it.

Why would the most powerful of Democratic Senators vote to confirm an enthusiastic supporter of presidential policies he considers not merely wrong but ruinous for the country, and who has bungled her own role in implementing these policies while misleading congress and lying to the Senator's own face?

It's almost as if Senator Biden agrees with David Brooks.

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2006
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2003
December 1 8 15    
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August 4 11 18 25  
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March 3 17   31  
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2004
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August I A T U S
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Busy, busy, busy.

What bokononists whisper whenever they think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.


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